Different products are used by parents to aid in the positioning of their children to facilitate feeding them from the time the child is an infant until the child is old enough and large enough to sit at a table properly. One such product is a high chair, which is typically used to support infants and small toddlers at an elevated position so that the caregiver can easily feed the child. The high chair is a self-standing unit that provides a safe and secure seating area with a feeding tray that is removable from the high chair to facilitate the placement of the child on the high chair and to facilitate the cleaning of the tray and high chair structure. High chairs can incorporate height adjustment mechanism so that the seat can be vertically positioned to fit various table heights so that the tray mechanism could be removed from the high chair and the child positioned on the high chair be pushed up to a table.
High chairs can provide different tray options. Some high chair configurations provide a smaller snack tray under the typical large high chair tray. These snack trays are attached to the high chair seat and do not have the ability to be adjusted in and out to accommodate different child sizes. Furthermore, since the snack tray is directly attached to the high chair seat, the care giver is required to lift the child up and over the snack tray in order to seat the child in the high chair, or to remove the child from the high chair. Although some snack trays can be removed from the high chair seat without tools, the removal of the snack tray typically requires two hands and the snack tray is usually only removed when the high chair is being used without the large tray, such as when the child in the high chair is pushed directly up to the table. While the snack tray is not typically adjustable positionally, the large tray is usually positionally adjustable on the snack tray.
Only a few high chairs commercially available utilize a post to socket tray connection, in which the tray is formed with rearwardly projecting horizontal posts that are received within sockets formed in the high chair structure. The post and socket design can be advantageous over other tray mounting designs in that the tray is easy to align when fastening to the high chair seat and the tray offers a strong interlocking connection with the high chair structure to withstand extreme cases of abuse during product use. Even so, the post and socket design is not without drawbacks. The post and socket tray mounting design typically suffers from high amounts of friction between post and socket and from the need to actuate the tray adjustment mechanism before for connecting the tray to the high chair seat.
The friction problem is typically resolved in a limited manner by using dissimilar materials for the tray post and high chair socket components. While dissimilar materials do alleviate the friction problem, the post and socket mounting trays remain difficult to adjust positionally relative to the high chair as the tray posts often bind or stick. The caregiver can become frustrated and loose motivation for removing the tray altogether. As a result, the value of having a removable tray can be unrealized or underappreciated by the caregiver.
A high chair with a double tray apparatus is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,810,432, issued to Robert Haut, et al on Sep. 22, 1998. The high chair has a lower snack tray mounted on the high chair structure with a larger upper tray mounted on the lower tray through a latch mechanism that engages the sides of the lower tray. The upper tray is positionally adjustable on the lower tray without requiring the movement of the lower tray. In U.S. Pat. No. 6,497,452, granted on Dec. 24, 2002, to Pietro Catelli, a double tray arrangement for a child's high chair is disclosed. The top cover of the tray is removably mounted thereon. A hooking member is provided to latch the upper tray to the lower base tray. The hooking member includes a slider cooperatively associated with an operating slide button forming the actuator of the high chair tray adjustment feature.
It would be desirable to provide a high chair tray system incorporating a multiple tray structure that will provide allow an easy positioning of the tray on the high chair and provide improved flexibility in the use of the tray.